To ask your favourite childhood traditions?

[Banana0pancakes]

Dd is 2 and ds1, and after reading a thread earlier about changing parenting style I've ended up thinking about the little things that make childhood magical.

Has anyone got any favourite traditions or memories they'd share?

I'm pretty lucky that my parents went out of their way to give us the best, even though they had little.

I remember when Burger King gave away pokeballs with gold pokemon cards inside with their kids meals. I was desperate to have one. So my dad , while Db and I were at school, rang round to see where had them and drove us from the coast near Newcastle to Carlisle for tea at a Burger King on the motorway. That probably makes me sound spoilt, I'm not -honest, I didn't expect that, he just took us! It was just such an adventurous thing to do on a school night so I remember it fondly.

That's a very sweet memory op!

I don't recall any traditions, but in a similar vein i recall mum's comfort meals; salty, buttery porridge with toast, cheese toasties with tomato soup, her pork chops and mash. The list goes on. I used to love either sitting in the kitchen or watching her do her hair and makeup.

Ice cream for tea one day close to the end of the school holidays. We piled into a car and went to the jazzy ice cream parlour for our evening meal.
Also setting off on holiday to the coast during the night, waking up in the car early hours of the morning by the sea was magical.
Pyjamas that matched my siblings Christmas eve and a jazzy hot chocolate kit and a new board game.

Sunday teatime we always little sandwiches (chicken paste!) and cakes and tea in a pot. I can't do it every sunday but occasionally I do it and remember those days with my mum.

If dad was in charge because mum went out we would always have a picnic on the bathroom floor before our bath. It was always sugar sandwiches and Bourbon biscuits. God knows how we slept with all that sugar!

Hmm not many. My dad read to me at bedtime for years. Til I was at high school I think! That was nice.
We used to go to my grandma's most sundays for a roast and then have lemon curd sandwiches for tea and watch the Antiques Roadshow!

Every Christmas Eve, me my mum and siblings (it was only us) would get in our new PJ's as soon as it got dark, stuff our faces with nice chocolate, make hot chocolate, get takeaway, my mum would always buy the glass Coca Cola bottles (as a treat!) and we would spend the day and night together as a family watching Christmas films until it was time to go to bed! Doesn't seem much but it has such a special place in my heart that I now do this with my fiancé and will with my future children. :)

my mum would always buy the glass Coca Cola bottles (as a treat!

It always tastes so much nicer from a glass bottle, I sometimes buy myself one as a treat as it feels fancier

We always had 'The Birthday Bumps', my grandparents would hold me, one by the ankles one by my hands outstretched above my head (horizontal) and then lift me up and 'bump' me down on the ground on my bum for the number of years old I was, then one extra for luck which would end with me being swung in the air onto the sofa.

We do this with my kids now too, my DH finds it most bizarre as he never had the birthday bumps growing up, I always thought everyone did!

My dad would walk us to the swimming pool on a Sunday morning. My mum would pick us up in the car afterwards and she's have a picnic packed (fizzy orange and crisps were always involved) and it would be a "mystery tour" they took us all over to different picnic spots. It didn't happen every week but quite often, and decades on I still smile thinking about it.

I think my favourite traditions, and my (adult) dc say the same, aren't really anything "special" that you create, but they are just the memories of things that "you do each year".

Like my Dad had a "wireless" that he listened to at breakfast every day, and this radio came away with us on holiday, so he could listen to the test match whilst we were on the beach. My siblings and I have very fond memories of that - but it was never 'created as a tradition' as such, clearly my Dad wanted to follow the match / know the score.

My dc have really fond memories of 'picnics in the boot' but again, this just came about because we'd go out on a lot of day trips in the school holidays, taking a picnic (as budget wouldn't have stretched to eating out) and then it would be raining, or at best drizzly, so we'd open up the boot of our people carrier and they would all sit inside the boot to munch the picnic. Nothing planned for a 'making memories' type way, just 'shared memories' of lovely times.

This is such a lovely thread, thank you OP!

Mine are Christmas related sorry to introduce the c word in July Wrapping the family presents while listening to Christmas songs on the radio. Watching Antiques Roadshow and then Songs of Praise by candlelight, while eating satsumas and cracking nuts to munch. Doing the ‘sleigh run’ delivering family presents on Christmas Eve (mostly just me and Dad, in hindsight obviously so Mum could wrap the stocking fillers!)

Staying at Grandparents, special ‘Nanny toast’ (still don’t know why, but it tasted better than home toast 🤷🏻‍♀️) being allowed to put logs or coal on the woodburner, playing cards on the rug in front of the fire for hours... ironically mainly patience, a trait I don’t have in adulthood 🤦🏻‍♀️

Going on random drives and letting me and my sister pick which way to go at the next junction. Finding random abandoned houses on these drives and imagining buying and restoring them. Car ‘treasure hunts’ where you had to solve a clue to get directions to the next one. Normally a competition with other family/friends/local groups.

(Waves to DSis if she’s on here) We never had a lot of money to spare, these things cost pennies but are some of my favourite memories.

Dad used to work in as a window dresser in a sea side town about 25 miles away from where we lived. In the school holidays we would be put in the car still in our PJs. He would park on the sea front and go into work while we got dressed in the car and had our breakfast. Then it was play on the beach, fish and chips for lunch and the best part, mid afternoon we would go to the department store, walk around the outside until we found whichever window he was doing and wave and pull faces at him. Happy memories!

I love all these, just goes to show what's really important and how kids perceive things differently to adults.

My dc have really fond memories of 'picnics in the boot'

I have fond memories of car boot picnics with my grandparents too.

Thanks for the thread OP, it's lovely to read.

Staying with my gran and having fish fingers and brea and butter for breakfast. My auntie who made tinned salmon sandwiches mashed with vinegar. Staying in a holiday cottage and being allowed to make the pudding, Angel Delight.

I still have one of the rocks I found on holiday with crystals running through it. I look at that an am instantly back as a 9-10 year old fishing in rock pools and looking for shells and stones.

‘Bullseye tea’ where we would eat little triangular salmon sandwiches, primula in celery and cakes while watching TV - we always ate at the table so it was a real treat every Sunday. We still call an inside picnic bullseye tea now in that weird rolls of the tongue don’t think of the meaning way!

My uncle had magic powers. When he visited, we'd stand holding hands with our eyes closed and "concentrate". Then when we opened our eyes, my uncle would name somewhere in the house (e.g. under my pillow) and when we went to wherever he'd said, chocolate had magically appeared!

My DC are still pretty young and at the moment, but I need to speak to my DB about re-creating that one.